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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957950">Start Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldvarpa/pseuds/eldvarpa'>eldvarpa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fëanorians in Beleriand [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adoption, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Original Character-centric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:14:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldvarpa/pseuds/eldvarpa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Estelindë thought her life would be meaningless after Amras's death.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fëanorians in Beleriand [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1146821</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Finwëan Ladies Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Start Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Amras left a message with me for you, in case he died,” Maglor told her, stopping a few steps from her.</p><p>Estelindë, who had spent a whole three days next to the heap of charred wood and ash left from the twins' funeral pyre, mourning, looked up at him glumly. </p><p>Her heart suddenly made itself heard again, and she hated it. </p><p>Even if Maglor had a message for her, Amras was still gone.</p><p>She briefly hated Maglor, too, for intruding, with his curly hair half-tousled and impossible to ignore. She stared at it. Curly hair was the only feature Maglor shared with his youngest brothers, and his was pitch black while theirs had been an even brighter red than Maedhros's. Estelindë had almost asked Maedhros to let her keep a lock of Amras's hair, but that would have been asking too much, no matter <i>how</i> much Amras had meant to her.</p><p>Amras had brought order in her life, he had given her the means to survive and a reason to, but she was still just a lowly soldier with no claim to anything. She didn't even know who her parents had been – if they had been truly Ñoldor or maybe a Ñoldo and a Sinda, or maybe both Sindar, like Durithil's parents had been. She was just Estelindë of the Fëanorians, which to some people was tantamount to saying something like 'dog of the Fëanorians'.</p><p>And now Amras was dead and her world was turning black and crumbling like the wood from the funeral pyre. Her tears welled up again, but her eyes stung so much already she didn't notice.</p><p>“Linn,” Durithil called, tugging on her hand, cold and clammy against hers like almost everything else in the Taur-im-Duinath. It had taken a while to properly light the funeral pyre, even though they'd picked a spot where the trees where sparse.</p><p>Estelindë's eyes focused again and she was still staring up at Maglor's hair. She hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand.</p><p>“Sorry, my Lord.”</p><p>Maglor shook his head, gently. “Amras asked me to tell you that he wanted to adopt you.”</p><p>“Adopt me?” Estelindë repeated, not sure what he meant. Amras had taught her enough Quenya so that she could understand him even when he spoke in his mother tongue to his brothers and friends, but this 'yenta' word was new to her.</p><p>“Make you his daughter and heir,” Maglor explained, “though there's nothing for you left to inherit save a few trinkets and a lot of hate.”</p><p>Estelindë's breath hitched. Her knees wobbled and she almost let herself fall straight onto the pyre, sacrilegious as that would have been.</p><p>“Why?” she squawked. </p><p>“He wanted to you carry on even if he was...is gone. He left a letter for you, too,” Maglor said, showing her the two large bundles he had been carrying under his left arm, under his mantle.</p><p>Estelindë was too stunned to even cry. Besides, Maglor had no more time to waste on her grief, being busy enough with his own. He came forward holding out to her one of the two bundles. She received it with both her hands, and held it tightly. There was the star, embroidered by Caranthir on Amras's mantle, right at the top of the bundle, and inside the shapes of objects she could have probably guessed at if her mind had not repeating <i>yenta</i> over and over. She vaguely heard Maglor tell Durithil that since Amras and Amrod had always been together, and he and Estelindë were always together, he could become Amrod's son, if he wanted to.</p><p>“If you two accept the adoption, you just need to go see Maedhros, who as head of the family is the only one that can officially welcome you among us. A mere formality,” Maglor added. </p><p>Maedhros had nothing to bestow on her, either. No lands, no riches, not even honour. He could just turn her into Estelindë Fëanáriel in place of Estelindë of the Fëanorians.</p><p>“If you don't accept, return the bundles to me instead,” Maglor concluded and left.</p><p>Estelindë bowed at his back then looked at Durithil and the identical star between his hands. </p><p>“...do you think Maedhros is busy now?” she asked, sniffling once.</p><p>Durithil assessed the sky through the trees. The patches of blue were getting darker. “Don't think so.”</p><p>“So, are we going to become <i>cousins</i>?” </p><p>Durithil half-smiled, which was – in and of itself – a gift. “Aren't the children of twins more like siblings?”</p><p> </p><p>Just as Estelindë and Durithil approached the hut were Maedhros resided – usually a busy place with soldiers and healers and messengers coming and going – Maedhros came out of it, and smiled at them. </p><p>Estelindë was about to greet him when behind Maedhros she saw <i>them</i>. </p><p>Elwing's sons, who were also twins and still alive. </p><p>Estelindë's heart filled with anger. Emmelin immediately led the children away, but Estelindë's glare followed them. Durithil's gaze was even grimmer than hers. </p><p>Durithil was also the one who usually blurted things out when he was particularly upset, but this time it was Estelinde who couldn't keep her thoughts to herself. </p><p>“Why are you looking after them, my Lord?” she asked, forgetting to properly greet him.</p><p>“Estelindë,” Maedhros sighed. His face fell a bit and Estelindë felt even worse. “You of all people should not want to be cruel towards children.”</p><p>“Why not? Not even their mother cared about them!”</p><p>“She must have panicked. I was a bit too far away from her.” Maedhros paused.</p><p>The largest scar on the left side of his face – which descended from the corner of his eye down over his cheekbone and disappeared under his jaw – twitched. Estelindë had learnt to understand what Maedhros truly meant by reading his scars, observing him when she accompanied Amras to councils and the like.</p><p>Maedhros wished he had been closer. </p><p>Close enough to stop Elwing. Kill her, if necessary, reclaim his treasure.</p><p>Estelindë too wished she'd been closer.</p><p>She wished she'd been close enough to take whatever blow or blows killed Amras in his stead.</p><p>“I think I scared her enough though,” Maedhros continued.</p><p>“You did give her a chance to avoid all scares, my Lord, for herself and her people. Orcs never offered us a way out, never sent messengers, never promised friendship.”</p><p>“But I did attack her, just like orcs would have done.”</p><p>“So why aren't you tormenting her sons now, like orcs did with our children?” Estelindë challenged, almost forgetting who she was talking to altogether, so angry she was. “Why are you looking after them?” she asked again, her voice rising.</p><p>“Maybe someone will come looking for them?”</p><p>“Their mother doesn't care about them!”</p><p>“Her fleeing doesn't mean she –”</p><p>“<i>My</i> parents didn't flee.”</p><p>“Are you <i>sure</i> they didn't?”</p><p>Estelindë's cheeks burned. “Hithwion found me next to their corpses. Hithwion himself was terrified. He was barely an adult and I was nothing to him. But he didn't take off carrying some treasure belonging to orcs and leave me in the orcs' care.”</p><p>Maedhros's precisely etched scar twitched again. “Estelindë, I get your perspective, but I can't change the way things are now.”</p><p>“Then maybe we should have waited until orcs attacked Sirion, looked on, and then taken the Silmaril from the orcs.”</p><p>“Estelindë!” Maedhros cried, in the voice he used when they started on a march, a rumbling voice that rolled under their feet. “I thought you'd come here for the adoption and you're being impudent instead. You realise this is practically insubordination? Not what I would have expected from a faithful soldier like you.”</p><p>Estelindë froze. “I'm –”</p><p>“...But that is <i>exactly</i> what I would expect from a niece.” Maedhros smiled. “Your tata used to give me a lot of grief, in private, exactly like you did now. And yes, I would have gladly waited for orcs to do my job if there wasn't a chance for the Silmaril to end up in Angband again before we could even try to get it.”</p><p>Maedhros kept smiling so Estelindë tentatively smiled back. She clutched the bundle tighter to her chest. Of all the possible things to do, with Amras's inheritance in her arms, she had to end up yelling at Maedhros because of Elwing's stupid sons.</p><p>Maedhros bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead, addressing her with her new name: Estelindë Telufinwiel Fëanáriel.</p><p>He did the same with Durithil Pityafinwion Fëanárion.</p><p>“I also hereby dismiss the both of you from my service,” he went on to say, smoothly. “You've had enough death, and we are left with nothing. It's time for you to go down a different path.”</p><p>Estelindë could not believe her ears. There she was, Amras's daughter and a member of the house of Fëanor, only for Maedhros to dismiss her. </p><p>“And what if I still want to fight for you...” she steadied her voice and added, “Uncle?”</p><p>Maedhros had a grin ready for that, the one that made the small scar in the middle of his right cheek look like a dimple. “I don't suppose I can stop you, of course. But don't feel like you have to. Also,” he held his prosthetic up, meaning that he was about to impart another order. “Don't ever swear our oath.”</p><p>“I won't, Uncle,” Estelindë was quick to reply.</p><p>Durithil stared at her with wide eyes.</p><p>Maedhros turned to him. “You too.”</p><p> </p><p>“They're far enough, we need to go if we don't want to lose them,” Estelindë said, and grabbed Durithil's hand. She strode towards their poor excuse of a stable – just a wooden roof that more or less protected their few surviving horses from the rain.</p><p>Durithil reluctantly looked away from the mist that had swallowed Maedhros and Maglor. “But Maedhros ordered not to follow them.”</p><p>Maglor had not been entirely right when he said the their only inheritance would be a few small objects and a bad reputation. Estelindë and Durithil had inherited Amrod and Amras's horses, too. Estelindë let go of Durithil's hand and began untying them. Bags with provisions and weapons were already hanging from the saddles. </p><p>“Maedhros dismissed us from his service, remember? He has no authority over us.”</p><p>Durithil still hesitated: disobeying Maedhros still felt like the wrongest possible thing they could do.</p><p>“Come on, 'thil.” Estelindë brushed his pure Sindarin-gold locks behind his ear. His braid was coming apart so she urged him to turn and set about straightening it. “They are our uncles! Do you want to lose them like this?”</p><p>Durithil shook his head once.</p><p>“We could do nothing to save our parents, since we were just children, but we can do something now.”</p><p>“What can we do?” Durithil asked. “You think we can <i>save</i> them? Me and you?"</p><p>The idea did sound a little foolish to Estelindë herself. They were not saviours. They had made it through every battle they fought but had never saved anyone or anything.</p><p>“Perhaps not, but perhaps yes,” she said. “And if Uncle Maedhros and Uncle Maglor get the Silmarils, I sure as hell want my share of them. You remember the one we saw on Elwing in Doriath, right?”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>“Well, the oath is very clear: Fëanor and his kin, which also means us now.” Estelindë tied Durithil's braid and he spun around to face her again. “Sinë er më harya vorothanvë – ”</p><p>“Sinë er më harya<i>r</i> vorotha<i>nya</i>vë,” Durithil corrected her.</p><p>“Crap.”</p><p>“How do you keep getting it wrong after all the times we've heard it and repeated it?”</p><p>Amras used to murmur it whenever he sat down to clean his sword. On his lips, it had sounded like lullaby.</p><p>“I don't know,” Estelindë whined.</p><p>Durithil took the reins of his horse and handed Estelindë hers. “Promise me this, Linn: if we do find Maedhros and Maglor again, we <i>will</i> tell them that we have already recited their Oath probably more times than they did.”</p><p>“...I swear I will!” Estelindë promised: it was a small price to pay if she got to keep her family.</p><p>Durithil smiled a true smile. “Let's hurry then, sister.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sinë er më haryar vorothanyavë = "These we alone claim by right"</p><p>Estelindë's background is discussed in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/14568690">Take all the children where flood water's low</a>.</p><p>(And no, in case it wasn't clear Amras is not the best father figure.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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